Can We Prevent a Train Terror Attack?

Locomotives have been a focal point of attacks since before 9/11. But how can 140,000 miles of active railroad track in America be secured?

Last week the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said that it had broken up a terrorist plot to derail a passenger train, a plan it says members of Al Qaeda actively supported.

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The news is a jolt but not a surprise. Al Qaeda certainly has been willing to attack modes of transportation. Its members planted a bomb on board commuter trains in Madrid in 2004. The group also recommended attacking trains at their most vulnerable points by sabotaging the tracks themselves. And documents seized from Osama Bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan where he was killed indicate the group was considering terror plots for train derailments at bridges. Are we doing enough to protect our tracks?

Officials in and out of the federal government also had a robust argument about freight rails carrying hazardous materials. (One reason for congressional interest, reporters at the time speculated, was because a rail line carrying chlorine gas ran a few miles from the Capitol in Washington, D.C.) New standards hardened freight containers and, more controversially, rerouted hazmat trains through rural areas. Those in big cities applauded, but the move increased the amount of time hazardous cargo spends in transit.

Yet through all this preparation, the kind of intentional train derailments Al Qaeda was plotting were not high on the list of concerns. That's bad news, because it's pretty easy to derail a train.

There are two easy ways to do it. The first is to remove the spikes that keep the track in place. In 1995, someone removed 20 spikes from a train track in Arizona. The tracks shifted as the train crossed, derailing the car, killing an attendant, and injuring 100 passengers. The perpetrators were never caught—a note found on the scene claimed responsibility by an anti-government group, but the group has never been heard from again.

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The second way to derail a train is to leave something on the tracks. In 2011, three juveniles, aged 12, 13, and 14, reportedly derailed a train in Virginia that was carrying agricultural products. The object that caused the derailment was not identified, but considering the age of the suspects, it's probably not complex or difficult to duplicate. In 2005, a suspect parked a car in front of a train in Louisiana during a botched suicide attempt, then fled. He lived but the car derailed the train, though no one died in the derailment.

There is no silver bullet for protecting train tracks, but there are options. The first is track-tampering-detection systems. Fiberoptic cables can be wound into the tracks so that any removal of a bolt or fishplate can be detected. These sound great but there's a catch—the tech doesn't yet exist. In 2011, Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that Amtrak doesn't have the money to invest in such a system.

The cost of such systems across entire track lines is daunting, but some researchers see smarter ways. A trio of engineers from India in 2011 created a cognitive wireless sensor network that uses "cost effective and flexible piezoresistive pressure sensors which show large changes in resistances as soon as the nuts and bolts of the fishplates are loosened."

A smart security solution may be to focus on the likely spots that terrorists would target when they tamper with the tracks. "We're most concerned with the possibility of an external attack on a train at a vulnerable point, whether that be a bridge or a tunnel," Boardman said in 2011. If sensors and security cameras could be set up at places that were deemed most likely for a derailment, such as a bridge, the cost of the protection would drop significantly, as opposed to trying to protect all the tracks. Local police can also make monitoring these crucial points a priority in their jurisdictions.

But the best kind of protection against railroad terrorism might just be public awareness. Local police and citizens can keep an eye out for strange activity on the tracks, because most attacks would require the perpetrators to scout the location, as the would-be attackers did in Canada. "They watched trains and railways in the greater Toronto area," says Jennifer Strachan, a spokesperson for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

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